Soaring and Bounding: British Color Woodcuts

Exhibition Website

Dec 17 2017 - Apr 1 2018


This beautiful selection of color woodcuts by British artists demonstrates the influence of Japanese aesthetics and techniques on Western art of the 1920s and 1930s. The West knew little of the art in Japan until trade relations opened up in the middle of the 19th century. Woodcuts experienced a revival in Japan in the 1920s as part of the modern art movement, and as a result, British artists such as John Edgar Platt and Allen W. Seaby became masters of the technique in the West.

Printed by hand from multiple carved woodblocks, the works fit the ideals of the concurrent Arts and Crafts movement, which valued craftsmanship and the handmade. Some British artists adapted traditional Japanese methods, innovating to get the effects that they wanted. 

This selection of prints from the collection of John Rossetti reflects the melding of Japanese elements, such as asymmetrical composition, aerial perspectives, and natural subjects with British mofdifications like omission of an outline and even experimentation with relief printmaking from metal plates.

Included in the exhibition are The Tawny Owl (c. 1925) by Jean Armitage; Untitled (hawk, date unknown) by William Giles; HMS Victory (c. 1930s) by Cavendish and Concord Morton; The Plough (triptych, 1921) by John Edgar Platt; The Bridge at Burghfield (1900–1908), Flying Swans (c. 1923), and Red Grouse Calling (c. 1925) by Allen W. Seaby.

Image: John Edgar Platt (British, 1886-1967), The Plough (triptych), 1921, woodcut. Collection of John Rossetti.

  • Works on Paper
  • International
  • John Edgar Platt
  • William Giles
  • Allen Seaby

Exhibition Venues & Dates